A Testament toYale-NUS’ Continued Belief in My Development: Athletics

For the news to evoke such a full range of feelings in me only speaks of the full range of experiences that Yale-NUS has given to me.

I never intended for this ‘job update’, but it has since become pertinent for me to do so. For it has also become both a matter of legacy and testament of the familial experience in Yale-NUS College.

I am ecstatic about my return to Yale-NUS College as one of the coaches of its Badminton Team!! #ilovebadminton

As a student, it was where I was given the opportunity to play and compete in the sport I had loved ever since I was a boy. To compete for the College that I instantly came to love. I made some of my closest friends there, many of whom I now journey closely with as lifelong friends. Now, I have the chance to return to our beloved hall again and help others pick up the sport.
As a graduate, I now have another coaching gig to clock experience hours for my own development. And that is where I segue to this post being so much more than myself.

Almost nowhere else in my life have I experienced a community that so wholeheartedly invests in its members’ ambitions and pursuits. Whether a career or a fledgling interest, one could always find a cheerleader and waymaker in Yale-NUS to help one explore the horizon. Yale-NUS Athletics is but one of the many supporters I’ve had in this respect. I cannot emphasise how much my joy in Yale-NUS Badminton was hardly ever due to my technical ability. Unlike anywhere I have known, my experience centred around the outpouring of Yale-NUS Athletics’ belief in its athletes.

You could be a beginner or a seasoned player, and Athletics was always open to exploring the best way forward for the community. I was never a national athlete playing the big and televised games. At some point in College, I even underwent surgery that severely hampered my fitness and athletic development. There is simply no conventional reason to look beyond me and hire much better coaches from the marketplace.

But my trust in the College’s spirit shows that there’s more than meets the eye; I always loved the sport and relished the experiences I could forge with my team. In 2020, we grabbed our first-ever silver medal at the inter-college games after years of being swept off by other colleges as one of the easiest to beat. Yale-NUS’ greater belief in our personal growth was perhaps why other colleges sometimes raised eyebrows at our programming. Why would a motley crew who simply loved badminton and passionately wanted to try their best for each other be given the budget and faith to make well of their experience? Why should they get athletics exchanges with varsity teams in Taipei, attend training clinics in badminton hubs like Malaysia, or experience how the culture of the sport is down south in Australia? Because the development of people whose mission is to become ’a community of learning’, ‘in Asia, for the world’ is more abstract than the myopic declaration of ‘innovation’, ‘strategic direction’, and ‘taking the best from each and combining’ — buzzword goals at best.

As a result, our definition of peoples’ success is not all about the numbers game too. Besides the seemingly lofty excursions, there were innumerable creations through our unique collective. In the badminton team, hours and dollars were also invested in sharing meals together. On special occasions, we would write cards of encouragement to one another. Organically, players also organised their own sessions and non-badminton activities, sometimes even including the College’s staff and faculty.

I also fondly recall how Yale-NUS Athletics invested in our individual development and collective effervescence. For instance, students could sign up to be gym trainers for one another and go on certification courses comprising first aid and sports taping. College-wide appreciation celebrations were held to celebrate athleticism; I even won silly but sentimental awards like ‘Best Supporter Award 2017’ for crowdsourcing live video feeds for the university’s Inter-Faculty Games.

Yale-NUS Athletics is but one of many organs in the Yale-NUS body. Still, the spirit it embraces across the college anatomy has proven that this College actively and sacrificially believes in its people. Our community was never about naively scaling up, or blindly reinforcing meritocracy, or ambiguously defending ‘financial sustainability (and on what metrics are these decisions deemed prudent?). Alas, many ill-defined external expectations of the College either lost the plot or stirred misunderstanding, misinformation, disinformation and even hate. This is why I often responded to vitriol with an invitation to come to Yale-NUS and see what we are all about.

To me, Yale-NUS Athletics, and by extension the College, had already begun to realise its long-term investments in its members’ intangible growth and development. I can be confident in my assessment because I have been with them for 5 years and counting — as a player, captain, and now one of its coaches.

And that is why it is heartbreaking to hear of Yale-NUS’ demise on 27 Aug 2021. All of a sudden, whatever imagination I had of the College just became terminal. The news sent my return into an oscillation between grief and joy, and then into a ricocheting entropy of emotions. I felt angry, betrayed, concerned, defeated, and even guilty of my prior happiness. But what is one thing I immediately understood out of this paroxysmal tsunami? For the news to evoke such a full range of feelings in me only speaks of the full range of experiences that Yale-NUS has given to me.

This coaching gig is infinitely more than a part-time indulgence in my pet sport and more than extra allowance in my pocket. It is a testimony of Yale-NUS’ continued belief in my development as a person. It is my reciprocal desire to impact and invest in the lives of those in my beloved community. I cannot be more proud and overjoyed to return to Yale-NUS College just for this little bit, and I guess only for a little while more.

My appreciation goes out to my friends in YNC Athletics, whose work has been beyond impactful for our College. Thank you, Ling, Andy, and Subhas.